JeepHammer
SHOOTER
So, I had lunch with a guy I went to highschool with, and he tells me a story he's just wrapping up...
AND...
This is the reason so many manufacturers, processors & producers are going to automation.
He scratched & saved, worked any job to put himself through collage.
When he got out, was hired by a local/regional baked goods company.
The baked goods/snacks didn't make enough profit, so the big conglomerate raided the pension fund and fired everyone,
This friend and some other guys bought the factory/name brand and opened it back up.
Jump forward 25 years, 4 plants, 130 product lines, not huge profits, but pays pretty good and the brand sells pretty well regionally.
A bagging machine has a $2 electrical switch failure, the machine stops and tuns on the big red light for someone to look at it...
Now, one big machine takes printed, synthetic sheet off a huge roll, cuts it to make 20 parts, then makes tubes, closes the bottom.
Another machine weights product falling into the bag, when the weight is reached, the bag is sealed/cut where it falls into boxes.
A third machine moves the box and inserts another box for the next 'Fall' of bags.
This machine drops 20 filled & weighed bags at a time, 20 count boxes.
A guy on the second story takes box blanks (flat) off a skid, snaps it into the box shape, tapes the bottom closed and drops it into the feed bin...
This is the first guy to notice the bagging machine stopped, and he noted it on his time sheet but never told anyone.
The second person to notice the machine quit was the person that closed the box, moved it from conveyor belt to skid.
The next people, about 6, were the cooks that made the chips, when the chips stated backing up on the line.
They didn't stop the processing/cooking, just turned the excess back up into the dumpster...
This went on for 2-1/2 days before they stopped feeding the cookers,
But never bothered to turn the cookers off.
About a train car load of potatoes in 2-1/2 days went into dumpsters, and the power bill continued.
5 fork truck operators that moved the big rolls of packaging from warehouse to bagging machines.
This went on for 11-1/2 days until customers complained to customer service they couldn't get one of the most popular products,
And my friend found out about it from customer service...
He went to investigate and found,
The box maker reading a novel,
The box stacker in the employee lounge fiddling with her cell phone,
The line manager, and the floor supervisor hiding out in air conditioned offices,
The cook staff on that line behind the building sitting in their cars, smoking, etc,
Two train car loads of potatoes rotting in the box car heat,
11 maintenance staff that swore they didn't know anything about the problem even through every single one of them had to go around the end machine to get to maintenance department,
And workers from 19 other lines REALLY upset that line 20 staff hadn't been doing anything for 11-1/2 days...
And yet no one in the plant picked up the phone...
Power bills, spoiled product, 3 shifts of wages/benefits for the non-working employees,
About $90,000 in direct losses, not counting any potential sales/profits lost...
It's not the $2 common micro switch,
It was the failure of the entire management team, top to bottom.
It was the total failure of the work crews, 3 shifts a day, that wouldn't kick maintenance into fixing the machine,
It was a total failure of common sense.
The ONLY person to cover his butt in writing was the box maker, who noted in his time sheet (to line manager) the machine had stopped...
Plant supervisor, GONE.
Line manager, GONE.
Maintenance Supervisor, GONE.
No one could remember these three coming out of their air conditioned offices since the summer got hot.
Entire plant workforce can now push the 'Big Red Button' when something stops.
Maintenance has to come to the button to turn the failure buzzer off.
No more claiming they didn't notice a huge machine not working.
Retraining has seen a few others go, but they quit rather than attend (paid) retraining.
Now, this place STARTS at $15/hour and goes up from there, plus paid holidays, vacation, 401k match, $35/week insurance, etc.
It's just REALLY hard to find good help...
AND...
This is the reason so many manufacturers, processors & producers are going to automation.
He scratched & saved, worked any job to put himself through collage.
When he got out, was hired by a local/regional baked goods company.
The baked goods/snacks didn't make enough profit, so the big conglomerate raided the pension fund and fired everyone,
This friend and some other guys bought the factory/name brand and opened it back up.
Jump forward 25 years, 4 plants, 130 product lines, not huge profits, but pays pretty good and the brand sells pretty well regionally.
A bagging machine has a $2 electrical switch failure, the machine stops and tuns on the big red light for someone to look at it...
Now, one big machine takes printed, synthetic sheet off a huge roll, cuts it to make 20 parts, then makes tubes, closes the bottom.
Another machine weights product falling into the bag, when the weight is reached, the bag is sealed/cut where it falls into boxes.
A third machine moves the box and inserts another box for the next 'Fall' of bags.
This machine drops 20 filled & weighed bags at a time, 20 count boxes.
A guy on the second story takes box blanks (flat) off a skid, snaps it into the box shape, tapes the bottom closed and drops it into the feed bin...
This is the first guy to notice the bagging machine stopped, and he noted it on his time sheet but never told anyone.
The second person to notice the machine quit was the person that closed the box, moved it from conveyor belt to skid.
The next people, about 6, were the cooks that made the chips, when the chips stated backing up on the line.
They didn't stop the processing/cooking, just turned the excess back up into the dumpster...
This went on for 2-1/2 days before they stopped feeding the cookers,
But never bothered to turn the cookers off.
About a train car load of potatoes in 2-1/2 days went into dumpsters, and the power bill continued.
5 fork truck operators that moved the big rolls of packaging from warehouse to bagging machines.
This went on for 11-1/2 days until customers complained to customer service they couldn't get one of the most popular products,
And my friend found out about it from customer service...
He went to investigate and found,
The box maker reading a novel,
The box stacker in the employee lounge fiddling with her cell phone,
The line manager, and the floor supervisor hiding out in air conditioned offices,
The cook staff on that line behind the building sitting in their cars, smoking, etc,
Two train car loads of potatoes rotting in the box car heat,
11 maintenance staff that swore they didn't know anything about the problem even through every single one of them had to go around the end machine to get to maintenance department,
And workers from 19 other lines REALLY upset that line 20 staff hadn't been doing anything for 11-1/2 days...
And yet no one in the plant picked up the phone...
Power bills, spoiled product, 3 shifts of wages/benefits for the non-working employees,
About $90,000 in direct losses, not counting any potential sales/profits lost...
It's not the $2 common micro switch,
It was the failure of the entire management team, top to bottom.
It was the total failure of the work crews, 3 shifts a day, that wouldn't kick maintenance into fixing the machine,
It was a total failure of common sense.
The ONLY person to cover his butt in writing was the box maker, who noted in his time sheet (to line manager) the machine had stopped...
Plant supervisor, GONE.
Line manager, GONE.
Maintenance Supervisor, GONE.
No one could remember these three coming out of their air conditioned offices since the summer got hot.
Entire plant workforce can now push the 'Big Red Button' when something stops.
Maintenance has to come to the button to turn the failure buzzer off.
No more claiming they didn't notice a huge machine not working.
Retraining has seen a few others go, but they quit rather than attend (paid) retraining.
Now, this place STARTS at $15/hour and goes up from there, plus paid holidays, vacation, 401k match, $35/week insurance, etc.
It's just REALLY hard to find good help...
